The Best and Worst Documentaries of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival

Few filmmakers in Hollywood history were subjected to a rise and fall as dramatic as that of Hal Ashby, who produced seven straight masterpieces in the 1970s (including Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, and Being There), and proceeded to make nearly as many misfires in the 1980s. Director Amy Scott hits most of them, and covers them well – but more importantly, she filters all of them through the overarching story of his love for the work. That love is conveyed not only via the usual talking head interviews and clips, but his personal letters (read here by Ben Foster, they’re often charming and lovely, often funny in their ferocity) and inspiring archival audio clips. “The film will tell you what to do,” he insists, and his advice is worth heeding; he made all those great movies all those years ago, and now, indirectly, he’s given us another one.